The Axis of Terror: The Destructive Price of America’s Blind Allegiance to Israel

M. Reza Behnam

 April 20, 2026

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Photograph Source: NAVCENT Public Affairs – Public Domain

The unprovoked joint U.S.-Israeli war launched against Iran on 28 February 2026 will manifestly change West Asia.  When it ends, Arab despots, who allowed their countries to be used as platforms for aggression against Iran, will confront a new reality.

The safety and stability they thought was theirs based on fealty to the United States and its Israeli proxy was shattered as Iranian missiles and drones were en route to destroy the U.S. military and intelligence installations they had allowed on their soil; a subordination they falsely believed would protect them.

The Arab world is learning the hard way what the late-Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, in his cold logic, implied decades ago about American foreign policy: “The word will go out to the nations of the world that it may be be dangerous to be America’s enemy, but to be America’s friend is fatal.”

On the other hand, it is clear that Iran does not abandon its allies, having supported the just cause of the Palestinians for 47 years.  And during the current war, Tehran has refused to abandon its Lebanese Hezbollah allies as well. It has adopted a “peace for all or no peace” stance, refusing peace negotiations/accords that would not include its regional allies.

Deep-seated militarism and distrust, hallmarks of the region, are directly linked to a legacy of foreign intervention: the post-WWI breakup of the Ottoman Empire; the 1948 imposition of the Zionist colony in Palestine; and America’s unwavering support for its killing machine.

From the Truman Doctrine to the Carter Doctrine, the Persian Gulf and its natural resources have been regarded as “vital interests” of the United States, to keep riches in the hands of wealthy Americans.  Every U.S. president has declared a willingness to use “any means necessary” to dominate the region.

To “protect its interests” and its Israeli proxy, the United States has operated 19 military bases across roughly 10 countries in West Asia, housing 40-50,000 military personnel. Of that number eight were considered permanent installations, while the others were temporary or forward-operating sites.  It also deployed several naval ships to the Mediterranean; with the headquarters of the anti-Iran naval armada, the U.S. Navy’s Fifth Fleet, anchored in Bahrain.

Prior to the latest Zionist instigated war on the Islamic Republic, these sites had been used by America to spy on, destabilize and attack Iran as well as other Muslim countries.

For example, the drone that killed Quds commander, General Qassem Soleimani and several others, including Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, deputy commander of Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Forces, in 2020, was flown from the Al-Udeid air base in Qatar, home of U.S. Central Command.   It is worth noting that the Iraqis assassinated in the attack were Qatar’s fellow Arabs; Soleimani was the lone Persian among them.

It is important not to forget that the presence of U.S. bases in Saudi Arabia was identified by al-Qaeda as a primary reason for the attacks of 11 September 2001; this in addition to Washington’s unconditional support for Israeli atrocities against the Palestinians.

When the Arab states outsourced their security to the United States, believing they had purchased safety and security, they essentially relinquished their sovereignty; this is especially true of the six Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) member states that border the Persian Gulf: Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

Beyond military bases, the U.S. has dominated these Gulf regimes through economic ties, security partnerships and massive arms sales, which have created dependence on American military technology, training and maintenance.

As Washington built up its military in the region and increased its threats to use force if Iran did not surrender to its (essentially Israeli) demands, the Islamic Republic, in an official letter to the United Nations (19 February 2026), reaffirmed once again that if subjected to military aggression, it would:

“respond decisively and proportionately in the exercise of its inherent right      of self-defense under Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations. In such circumstances, all bases, facilities, and assets of the hostile force in the region would constitute legitimate targets in the context of Iran’s defensive response. The United States would bear full and direct responsibility for any unpredictable and uncontrolled consequences.”

Soon after the joint U.S.-Israeli strikes and targeted assassination of 86-year old Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and his family on 28 February, Iran launched retaliatory attacks on U.S. bases in the Gulf; installations used to strike the country.

Ironically, the Gulf monarchies have based their security on the primary source of regional insecurity. Washington’s unconditional support of Israel has made the entire region a target.

Despite warnings of the risks to the economic and structural stability of its Gulf partners, the Trump administration, with Israel, escalated its attacks on Iran.  Forced to the forefront of a war they did not want, Gulf rulers have learned that they are expendable in the eyes of Tel Aviv and Washington.

The disparity between the vast economic wealth of the Gulf states and their limited political agency is largely a legacy of their historical evolution.

The modern oil-rich monarchies of the Persian Gulf evolved from ancient maritime trading hubs and tribal confederations.  Until the late 20th century, the Gulf states, except Saudi Arabia, existed as British protectorates and their boundaries were primarily shaped by colonial officials.

Most of the current ruling families are descendants of leaders maintained in power by the British during their 150-year domination of the Gulf (1820-1971).

To support its strategic interests, primarily in India, Britain legitimized existing hereditary leaders and installed local hand-picked rulers that were willing to accept British authority. Those who refused “supervision” risked being deposed and replaced with a more compliant family member.

Interestingly, Britain’s hegemony over the Gulf began in 1820 over its refusal to pay tolls to pass through the Strait of Hormuz.  At that time, the powerful Qawasim maritime tribe (the Al-Qasimi family) controlled the waters of the Gulf and levied tolls on all trade that passed through the strait.  The British refusal led to confrontations between the two sides and the destruction of the entire Qawasim fleet.

Today, the descendants of the Al-Qasimi family, continue to rule two Emirates (Ras El Khaimah and Sharjah).

If the Gulf monarchs survive the war, their populations may—for the first time since both world wars—decide their futures free of tyrants, profligate sheiks and foreign domination. They can look to their own history, traditions and cultural heritage instead of relying on and mimicking the West, building one more alien useless skyscraper, sponsoring LIV golf tournaments and drag racing in the desert.

For nearly five decades, Zionist regimes have focused on a strategic goal: the election of a U.S. president compliant enough to wage war against Iran on their behalf.  They found their cat’s-paw in the current occupant of the Oval Office, Donald J. Trump.

Born at the barrel of a gun, Israel secures its place in the region by fostering chaos and conflict.  By deliberately sowing inter-Arab and Iranian-Arab division, it has reaped enormous profits through a booming arms and intelligence industry.  And by keeping its neighbors at odds and concentrated on Iran, it ensures no unified front arises that can challenge its existence.

The war on Iran has forced evolution, if not a revolution, upon West Asia. This shift could alter the geopolitics of the region, triggering U.S. independence from Israel and enabling regional transformation free from U.S. and Israeli domination.

With these stirring words, “The blood of the slain, the weeping voice of nature cries, TIS TIME TO PART,” Thomas Paine (Common Sense) called on the American colonies to sever ties and declare independence from Britain.  His call for a complete break from imperial power in 1776 is more timely than ever.

For America and the Arab states, severing ties with Israel is the only sensible path to take in order to finally end the chronic destructive cycle the region has known since Israel was forced upon it.  Yet, owing to Washington’s strategic myopia and Arab leaders’ historical deference, it is doubtful that they will make such a fundamental and necessary shift in regional politics.

Although our days are filled with grief and uncertainty because of yet another U.S.-sponsored Israeli war against its neighbors, one thing, however, is certain there will never be peace in West Asia until there is justice and self-determination for the Palestinians.

Dr. M. Reza Behnam is a political scientist who specializes in comparative politics with a focus on West Asia.  

Behind the Iran War and All the Wars in the Middle East: Oil

Charlotte Dennett

April 3, 2026

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Photograph by Nathaniel St. Clair

One month into the war in Iran, journalists and politicians, Democrats and Republicans, leftist, rightists, and independents should no longer be asking what this war is all about.

Sasan Fayazmanesh, in his March 13th piece in Counterpunch, made a convincing (and brave) argument that It’s Israel, Stupid. He just didn’t go far enough.

He rightly begins by posing the questions that seemed to have no coherent answer:

Is it because negotiations with Iran over its nuclear program were not progressing? Is it because Iran was close to developing nuclear weapons? Is it because Iranian ballistic missiles were going to reach the US soon? Is it because Israel was going to attack Iran and the US took pre-emptive measures to ensure the safety of Americans? Is it because the Iranian government was violating human rights? Or is it something else?

He posits

The US attacked Iran for one reason and one reason only: Israel. Israel, created by the US and Europeans, has been urging the US for decades to wage a destructive war against Iran.”

Why? To achieve the Zionist goal of achieving a Greater Israel. But she omits Israel’s thirst for getting and controlling oil, harkening back to the presidency of George W. Bush and a revelation made to former NATO commander Wesley Clark immediately after 911. As I documented in my book, Follow the Pipelines: Uncovering the Mystery of a Lost Spy and the Deadly Politics of the Great Game for Oil, Clark in 2007 stated that a Pentagon official revealed to him in 2001 a plan to “attack and destroy the governments in seven countries in five years,” starting with Iraq and moving on to Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan [all oil -related conflicts] and Iran. While on a book tour, Clark stated further that the Bush strategy was shaped around gaining control of Middle East oil resources, based on a plan by his neoconservative backers [some with dual US-Israeli citizenship] to “use US troops to secure access to these energy supplies abroad.”

Today Iran is the third largest owner of oil reserves in the world, behind Saudi Arabia and Venezuela. This simple fact has not been adequately addressed by the media, which has focused on the dangers of blockading the Strait of Hormuz and seizing Kharg Island, resulting in the increase in the price of oil, and chronicling how both sides have bombed the others’ oil installations –without explaining the hidden context of competing petro powers seeking to command and control oil to adequately supply their militaries — and most recently, to use natural gas to power AI data centers.

Now, at last, Trump has let the cat out of the bag. Last week, amidst a throng of journalists assembled at a press conference following Trump’s meeting with his cabinet, one reporter raised his hand high and asked the forbidden question: “Do you want to control Iran’s oil?”

“That’s an option,” Trump replied. “But I wouldn’t talk about it.” For the next couple of days, he adhered to the traditional playbook of hiding any oil connection to US war plans, then spilled it out over the weekend, telling the Financial Times he could “take the oil in Iran” and seize the energy export hub of Kharg Island.

The fact is, aside from Israel’s territorial ambitions, oil has always been the cause of all the wars in the Middle East since the state of Israel was created in 1948.

Location, Location

There is even an oil connection to the famous Balfour Declaration of 1917 with the British supporting the creation of a Jewish state in Palestine. It was actually a simple letter by Lord Balfour, Britain’s foreign secretary, to Walter de Rothschild of Europe’s huge oil and banking dynasty. This small but significant detail is often absent from historical accounts on the founding of Israel, whose location, bordering the Eastern Mediterranean, made it a perfect terminal point for a pipeline carrying oil from Iraq. Provided, that is, European Jews could be relied on to protect the pipeline.

Why don’t people know this? Because the oil connection to war has been rigorously suppressed by all the nations that are, or aspire to be, great powers. They learned a big lesson from Germany’s defeat in World War I and World War II: its military ran out of gas.

Oil was, and still is, the fuel of the military, which makes it the most coveted resource on earth. Even if Country A has enough of it (as Trump is now arguing about US reserves) it has to worry about Enemy Country B (Russia, China, Iran, Venezuela, the BRICS alliance) getting other rich, untapped reserves. I call it The Great Game for Oil, and it’s getting more vicious than ever now that huge quantities of natural gas are being sought after to power AI data centers.

President Trump, no student of history, likely knows this fact because he talks to his oil donors frequently, assuring them he will make good on the millions they donated to his campaigns by going to war. He may try to disguise his true ambitions: beyond his moniker Drill Baby Drill, he strives to make billions while serving as Commander in Chief, bent on conquering the oil lands of the world.

At least Senator Ed Marke of Massachusetts revealed on March 27 that the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz had made billions for oil companies, causing their stocks to skyrocket.On March 27, he sent a letter to the CEOs of at five of the largest oil and gas companies — ExxonMobil, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, Shell, and BP — demanding that “big oil and gas companies refrain from awarding executives profits generated from rising oil prices during Trump’s illegal war in Iran.”

But even he missed a central fact. What wife or mother would accept sending her loved ones into harm’s way if an underlying purpose was to enrich oil companies and their government allies? This, and the need to fuel the military, is where pretexts come into play.

And here’s how Time Magazine, under the ownership of arch-conservative Henry Luce, demonized Iranian President Mohammed Mosadegh in 1952 before the CIA coup that overthrew him in 1953. His “crime” was nationalizing Iran’s oil.

The Iranian people have a long memory of this travesty, which brought the Shah onto the Peacock Throne. Who benefited from the coup? Nelson and David Rockefeller (see my previous substack on Iran)

WWI: When oil first reigned supreme

Winston Churchill, as First Lord of the British Admiralty, made the fateful decision in 1911 to change his navy’s fuel from coal (of which Britain had plenty) to faster, more efficient, and cheaper oil (of which she had none). Britain, Churchill said ruefully, had no choice but to fight “on a sea of troubles” to get the oil Britian needed, but didn’t have.

That’s why seizing the oil of Iraq became Britain’s “first class war aim” during World War I. Once achieved, the next challenge was moving the oil to where it was needed. The victors of World War I knew how to do it: by pipeline.

The best route? Piping it to a terminal point on the shores of the Eastern Mediterranean, where warships could fuel up and tankers could transport it to European ports. The perfect location: Haifa, Palestine. Israeli scholar Bernard Aishai, author of The Tragedy of Zionism, has noted that “Haifa was an ideal port — and the natural place for a pipeline terminal bringing oil from the east.” Haifa was inhabited by both Arabs and Jews, but eventually would become primarily Jewish-controlled. What better way to ensure a pipeline’s safety than to colonize Palestine with European Jews who could be trusted to protect it against Muslim infidels?

The Iraq Petroleum Company pipeline. Built in 1934 but conceived after WWI. It was decomissioned in 1948 follow the creation of the state of Israel. Benjamin Netanyabu hoped to reopen it following the 2003 invasion of Iraq, bragging “Soon the oil will flow to Haifa.” But it hasn’t due to ongoing hostilities in the region. Source: Wikipedia

Trust me on this: My father’s mission, as head of U.S. counter-intelligence for the OSS and later CIG (Central Intelligence Group, both precursors of the CIA) )in the Middle East during WWII, wrote in 1943 that his most important mission was “to control the oil at all costs.” That was Saudi Oil, America’s prize possession, that was also going to be piped to the Eastern Mediterranean — either to Israel or Lebanon — by the Trans-Arabian pipeline. As the New York Times wrote on May 2, 1947, two weeks before my father died in a mysterious plane crash, “protection of that investment and its military and economic security that it represents inevitably will become one of the prime objectives of American foreign policy in this area, which has already become a pivot point of world politics and one of the main focal points of rivalry between East and West” –East meaning Russia.

This map, based on the 1947 New York Times article and map, shows the dotted projected route of the Trans-Arabian pipeline. It would end up in southern Lebanon instead of northern Lebanon, as pictured here. The solid pipelines were conceived after WWI, with the French controlling the nothern branch ending up in northern Lebanon and the British controlling the southern branch, terminating in Haifa, Palestine.

This game is still going on: Protection of oil at all costs. And at what cost in human lives and treasure?

Billions of dollars have poured into Israel over nearly eight decades to ensure the secure flow of oil — from Iraq and from Saudi Arabia — to the world. And although Netanyahu is now getting his way for his own expansionist schemes due to his close relationship with Trump, Trump will call the ultimate shots, because Big Oil trumps everything.

A few more nuggets from history

Traditional histories of the immediate post WWI period describe how France and England, the primary victors of their war to seize the oil of Turkey’s defeated Ottoman Empire, divided the rectangle of former Ottoman land stretching from Syria and Palestine through Mesopotamia (Iraq). Their 1920 agreement would come to be known as the San Remo Agreement. In those days, however, State Department documents more accurately termed it the San Remo Agreement on Oil. The reference would subsequently disappear from public discourse, as would 1920 references to U.S. foreign policy as “oleaginous diplomacy.”

Fast Forward to 1944. when Jewish survivors of the Holocaust managed to escape to Palestine. They were the first to hold aloft signs saying “No Blood for Oil,” protesting the Roosevelt Administration’s delay in rescuing Jews so as not to alienate King Ibn Saud of Saudi Arabia, who objected to the creation of a Jewish state in Palestine and threatened the US’s exclusive and very lucrative oil concession.

Five years later, in 1949, the CIA overthrew Syria’s nationalist leader Shukri Quwatly, who opposed the Trans-Arabian pipeline traversing Syrian territory and terminating in Israel, (The pipeline would terminate in southern Lebanon, some 100 miles north of Israel.)

The daughter of a CIA spy, Anne Tazewell, takes us into Egypt and the mid 1950s in her book, A Good Spy Leaves No Trace: Big OIL:CIA Secrets and a Spy Daughter’s Reckoning. She uncovers a document likely by her father, that states “Our policy in the Middle East has been directed toward retaining the area within the free world, developing the oil resources.”

To be fair, the CIA in 2003 put President George W. Bush on notice that Saddam Hussein’s Iraq did not pose an imminent threat requiring an invasion, which Bush (junior oilman that he was) ignored. Same thing happened with Trump: US intelligence warning him that Iran did not pose an imminent threat. Generals also warned Trump about Iran’s control of the Strait of Hormuz.

But now Trump is so locked-in, that he has now ordered over 10,000 American troups to the Middle East.

Yemen and the alternative to the Strait of Hormuz

Not addressed by media accounts is Saudi Arabia’s war in Yemen against the Houthis with US backing. The Saudi plan: to build a Trans-Yemen pipeline that would avoid the Strait of Hormuz and carry Saudi oil down through southern Yemen terminating in the Gulf of Aden near the Arabian Sea.

The dotted line represents the projected Trans-Yemen pipeline, still projected, that would avoid the Strait of Hormuz on the east and the Bab al Mandab chokehold in the west. Apologies: for some reason the countries are not identified in this or the Saudi Trans-Arabian pipeline map, but they are in my book, Follow the Pipelines, published by Chelsea Green.

Trump, in 2019, vetoed a Yemen War Powers Act that would have ended US military involvement aimed at subduing the Houthis in this devastating war that caused an acute humanitarian crisis, including mass starvation in Yemen. As of March, 2025, the Saudis have been “insisting that the land the pipeline crosses be considered Saudi territory — a demand that local tribes have rejected.”

At the time of writing, Trump is now threatening to “obliterate” Iranian electric installations and Kharg Island if Iran doesn’t open the Strait of Hormuz. And Israel is expanding its bombing of Southern Lebanon, killing UN peacekeepers and three journalists. More than 1,200 people have been killed, including 120 children, according to the Lebanese Health Ministry and UNICEF, while more than 1.2 million people have been forced out of their homes across the country.

And yes, there is an oil and gas connection to these incursions, as Netanyahu strives to establish an energy corridor along the entire eastern Mediterranean, tapping into $5 billion in oil and natural gas off the coast of Gaza, Israel, Lebanon and Syria. Stay tuned.

This first appeared on Charlotte Dennett’s Substack page, Cui Bono?

Charlotte Dennett is an investigative journalist. Her most recent book, now out in paperback, is Follow the Pipelines: Uncovering the Mystery of a Lost Spy and the Deadly Politics of the Great Game for Oil.